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Interview with Shirley Briggs
Speaker:
...interesting and some which you may find less useful, and we!ll just go through this.
Shirley Briggs:
You sent me something on what might come up and it struck me as questions that
were unanswerable in most cases.
Speaker:
Well, then just tell me, and we!ll go on. But really, the questions I!m going to ask
you, we just want to know more about your career, the three years you worked with
us and Fish and Wildlife, what you went on to do, and then just...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I was in the Department of the Interior.
Speaker:
Yes, yes.
Shirley Briggs:
And I could tell you something about the Bureau of Reclamation.
Speaker:
We!d like to hear all of that.
Shirley Briggs:
Other outfits I dealt with there.
Speaker:
Great, but we!ll ask you those, and just try and get a sense of the time and to your
important conservation work and contributions. Does that sound reasonable?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, <unclear>. I mean, this is just, they called it environment, I think, which was a
big, broad, meaningless word.
Speaker:
Shirley, if you don!t mind, we!d like to start near the beginning with what inspired you
to study art in college. What made you want to be an artist?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I don!t know. I just <unclear> that seemed to be a major subject for graduate
school, and I had more interest in sculpting. Whatever else, I don!t know. I just
always did that.
Speaker:
What type of art interested you? Were you interested in...
Shirley Briggs:
I have a Master!s Degree in sculptor, for heaven!s sake, which I have not had much
occasion to do recently. No, in recent years I!ve mainly done drawings. I!ve done
quite a bit of illustration. Once a year I try to do a drawing so I can send something
out for New Years. I!ve got quite a pile of them by now.
Speaker:
How did you move from later on teaching art at North Dakota State?
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
Apparently you taught art for a little while at North Dakota State.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, here and there.
Speaker:
Then you eventually moved to the Washington area. What pulled you out here?
Shirley Briggs:
Let me see if I can remember. Well, I!ve always been here some. I had an uncle
who lived here. It was a familiar, homey place, but what did bring me here really?
It!ll come to me. Was it the government job? Probably.
Speaker:
Didn!t you work for a defense contractor?
Shirley Briggs?
What? Pardon me. You aren!t speaking clearly or loudly enough.
Speaker:
Did you initially work for aircraft...
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, Martin Aircraft, yeah, which now has a different name.
Speaker:
What were you doing for them?
Shirley Briggs:
Drawings. I can illustrate probably still obsolete airplanes. Yeah, it was very
interesting. I found a sculptor came in handy. I can look at an engineering drawing of
something and visualize it and draw it in ordinary perspective.
Speaker:
That!s good. So how did you end up working for Fish and Wildlife? How did you
go from Martin Aircraft to Fish and Wildlife Service?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m not sure. It may come to me. I was in the area, and that!s something I was
always interested in. I fell in with Rachel Carson, of course, which our offices were
nearby, Department of Interior. We both liked to go out and explore the
countryside and look for birds and all that sort of thing and was sort of the transition, I
guess.
Speaker:
Shirley, what were your initial impressions of Rachel when you started with us?
Shirley Briggs:
She was more fun than anybody else.
Speaker:
Why so?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she just was. No, she was so aware of everything that was going on and
could see all of the inconsistencies and hilarity and what not, not all these dreary
things that come up in the bureaucratic situation. She could make them hilarious.
There was a man at the Government Printing Office named <unclear> that we had a
terrible time with getting things properly designed and printed, because she cared a
great deal that things were well done in that department, and we both liked to go out
at the out of doors, and that was fun. She was so aware of everything. You saw a
lot more if you were out with her somehow.
Speaker:
What do you mean? Did she more birds than you or look at them in a different
way?
Shirley Briggs:
Everything, not just birds. But I mean, she was so conscious of the whole scene.
Very bright people tend to be, and she was a very bright person.
Speaker:
Now, did you go on excursions for work, or did you go after work or on weekends?
Shirley Briggs:
Well no, this was after, we didn!t go off in the middle of the day, no. But she was
writing the Conservation in Action series, and I went with her doing the fieldwork from
Chincoteague, and I didn!t get to go on no longer when she called Kate Howell out in
Salt Lake City. From then she got to go cross country a little more than I did.
Speaker:
Do you remember anything from the Chincoteague trip with Rachel?
Shirley Briggs:
Anything, well we were just a little fascinated by exploring it and meeting the people
who were working down there and seeing the refuge area and so on.
Speaker:
Carson!s interest was the oceans, right, and you were from the mid-west, from my
understanding. Where were you born?
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, I!m from Iowa, but I had always had an uncle here in Washington whom we
visited a good deal, so this was familiar territory.
Speaker:
Did Carson help you appreciate the ocean at all, when you went to Chincoteague
and some of these places?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I never managed to get to the ocean, and when Rachel discovered that, we
rushed right over. I mean, this was something you had to get to right away, and if
you, where are you from?
Speaker:
Wisconsin.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, well then you understand. The ocean has a certain fascination for land based
people, and I was very keen on seeing the ocean and learning all I could from
Rachel, who was quite up on this, of course.
Speaker:
What were you doing for the Fish and Wildlife Service? What type of illustrations
were you making for them?
Shirley Briggs:
Information Specialist was the title. That meant writing, illustrating, designing
publications, that whole field.
Speaker:
What was your relationship with the biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service that
would feed you information?
Shirley Briggs:
Who?
Speaker:
The biologists in the field and so on, like Chincoteague and these places.
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t think I had a relationship with them. We were just all working on the same
thing.
Speaker:
Well, what type of projects did you tend to work on?
Shirley Briggs:
Whatever, well look at the Conservation in Action series, things like that, or there was
a fisheries publication that came out. I seemed to have made fish a good deal, you
know, that was how you referred to it. She is the fish, she is the something else.
Speaker:
What about drawing fish or drawing birds and so on, did your sculpting work help
you with that or your birding help you with that?
Shirley Briggs:
I was trained as an artist. You learn how to do, look at something and draw <unclear>
not imaginative, far out psychological things. These are just literal drawings which are
the simplest kind.
Speaker:
Would you draw them from a picture, or would you have a stuffed bird or fish, or
would you draw them outside from nature?
Shirley Briggs:
It was mostly by photographs. I wasn!t out chasing a trout down a brook or
something. That would have been a little difficult.
Speaker:
But they!re mostly photographs that you drew from.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yes.
Speaker:
What about the role of nature art, nature illustration in promoting conservation or
environmentalism?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think it!s been very important, try to make it look good for people who don!t
see why all these creatures mattered. That!s what the writing!s about.
Speaker:
Now you said you did writing in addition to illustrating.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, that!s what an Information Specialist does, anything that comes up. It was an
all purpose title.
Speaker:
Shirley, what time period, what years were you in the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Shirley Briggs:
I ought to have some reference material to look that up, I suppose.
Speaker:
Well, approximately, what era did you come in to Fish and Wildlife? We don!t have
to have the exact years.
Shirley Briggs:
When was it? Do you have the years Rachel was there?
Speaker:
"36 to "52. I!ve got down in my notes you entered in "45 and left in "48. Does that
sound right?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yeah.
Speaker:
So you were in Washington right at the tail end of the war and the Fish and Wildlife
Service had come back from Chicago and consolidated there.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:
What was it like working in Fish and Wildlife in that era? Do you remember any of
the issues that were going on or any of the priorities that you all were focused on in
the mid-1940's?
Shirley Briggs:
What records do you have of what was going on that might...
Speaker:
Well, I would think that Fish and Wildlife, having been kind of moved out of
Washington during the war and sort of in caretaker status, coming back, I would
imagine you were probably kind of gearing back up at the end of the war but...
Shirley Briggs:
I suppose. Do you have anything on Dr. Lionel Albert <unclear>?
Speaker:
I don!t believe we do.
Shirley Briggs:
He was one of the top people and, Burt, we called him. He and Rachel, I think, had
an office together, and he was a fascinating person. He wrote plays and things, very
literate, and was more concerned, I think, with the issues. Look him up. He!s
departed. He has a daughter somewhere I talk to occasionally.
Speaker:
You mentioned Conservation in Action, that series. Chincoteague was the first issue
of it, and that!s very interesting, because it was one of the first times our agency had
tried to communicate with the broad public, to try and explain what the refuge...
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, and both Burt and Rachel were much concerned with how government
publications looked. Before that they!d been the dreariest things you, well you!ve
got a few probably. But they thought government publications should be as classy
and striking and attractive as any commercial one or more so. It!s important that the
government expresses itself well, and Rachel had worked with that sort of thing, of
course, trying to write up or edit all these reports so that somebody might actually
read them. So there was much concern with fonts and type and illustrations and so
on.
Speaker:
Is that what she was fighting with this Mr. <unclear> about all the time, he didn!t want
to spend money on that?
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, yes. He never wanted to do anything different or, in those days, whether
anything actually got printed in more than black ink was a great issue. We were
always battling for a color or two somewhere. That was pretty far out.
Speaker:
It!s striking, because the Conservation in Action, I mean, they have striking covers.
They!re blue, they!re green, they!re red. She must have fought hard to get them to
publish those with the good looking covers and rich photographs inside of them.
Shirley Briggs:
It was for our great issues.
Speaker:
Where did you go to work after Fish and Wildlife? You said you stayed in Interior.
Shirley Briggs:
Well I, you see, this is the war years. You couldn!t get a permanent rating, and
somebody came along who had been in there before and pushed me out of my
job or something. There was a place with the Bureau of Reclamation. That!s how I
got into all the damn builders. I could have brought you some examples. I
probably tried to glamorize that, too. But while there I also did various jobs for
anyone else in the Department. There weren!t many graphic sections around at the
time.
Speaker:
Was it hard being a woman in Department of Interior in this period?
Shirley Briggs:
No. Now, there you go, sexism. No, I never found that there was any issue. The
Bureau of Mines, I did quite a bit with. I didn!t bother them, I don!t think. If you were,
you know, in the job and in the rating, why there you were. I don!t know how it was
out in commercial life, but it was fine in the government.
Speaker:
The government was a fine place to work. Did you ever have any discussions with
Rachel Carson about being a woman in government service, or did she ever talk to
you about the fact that you guys were, there were a very limited number of women
in professional jobs?
Shirley Briggs:
Rachel <unclear>, I think, were the only ones in a professional level in Fish and
Wildlife at that time, but that was partly because the information, publishing end of it
was kind of slim, too.
Speaker:
But did you recall any discussions you may have had on that issue with her, or did it
ever come up?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t think it ever came up. If you were competent and qualified and you did the
job, fine. No one was making a big issue of it, as I recall. This was, as you
mentioned, the end of the war. There weren!t qualified people available much.
Speaker:
What!s your earliest memory of Rachel Carson in like your first meeting? Can you
tell us about that?
Shirley Briggs:
Do you do much trying to remember what things were like that far back?
Speaker:
It gets harder and harder with ever year.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she was a delightful person, and we liked to do a lot of the same things, and so
did her mother. She came along sometimes. We just were both interested in the
same, it!s always nice to find someone like that.
Speaker:
Now, there was a difference in age. You were younger than Rachel Carson, right?
Shirley Briggs:
Somewhat, but now I!m older than everybody.
Speaker:
But Shirley, one of the things that came up in Linda!s book that!s very interesting is
you and Rachel and Kay and Rachel!s mother used to socialize, and did that...
Shirley Briggs:
We had more parties than I can see how we squeezed in. It was a very sociable
time. There were quite a lot of people in Washington who had been here for the
war and so on and were away from their own locations, and we just had little parties.
There was a lot of socializing. I think I!ve commented some on it, I was amazed how
much of this sort of thing went on. Where did we find the time? Well, we didn!t have
much else to do.
Speaker:
They truly were the good old days, all those parties. What about, you said you
liked going birding and on excursions and so on. Did those experiences come back
into your work at all? Did you have a stronger feeling for nature illustration, do you
think, because you went out, because some people don!t, some people would
justent out with? There were quite a few naturalists, well known, in this area. Can
you tell me a little bit about other personalities you and Rachel encountered?
Shirley Briggs:
Lewis <unclear>, ran into him up at the Canal, I think. Is he still alive? I!m not sure.
But he was a noted writer in the field and appreciated Rachel!s skill at this. Clarence
Cottom was, of course, he was always very congenial and good friend. I get to
feeling older and older when I drudge up these people. They!re long gone. What
names occur to you?
Speaker:
Clarence Cottom is one.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
I mean, he!s very important to Rachel!s work and that whole period.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Did you have any remembrances about Clarence, I mean...
Shirley Briggs:
Cottom?
Speaker:
Yeah.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, he was just one of the better people who was trying to get the correct
information out always.
Speaker:
Did you have a chance to go up to Patuxent at all while you were working with Fish
and Wildlife?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, there was John George was out there and was in the Washington office some.
Alas, he!s now gone, darn it. I got a nice little folder from his memorial service with a
good picture of him. But Cottom and John and some people I!d rather not, they
weren!t all that great, you know. There were some duds.
Speaker:
Can you remember any of the duds, or have you purged them from your memory?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that might occur to me eventually. I never had much to do with them, if I could
help it, nor did John. Who else was there? I am one of the queer people in this
world that has kept a diary since I was child. I can sometimes go back through those,
but I haven!t had occasion to do it here. They said they wanted all my papers,
some woman!s, Iowa Women!s Archive out of Iowa City, and I thought well, maybe
I ought to just send all of that, but people like you keep showing up and want...
Speaker:
Don!t send them yet. We!d like to keep on tapping you for information or, you
know, ask about those years. What about after Reclamation, you worked with the
Audubon, the magazine, the Audubon Naturalists. Was that a change from what
you!d been doing previously?
Shirley Briggs:
Not especially. I!m trying to think about that. I seem to remember that more as a
spare time connection, but it was one of the private outfits. It was doing the right sort
of thing. I should have done more research on this, what did I do when.
Speaker:
Well, you just were editing it and so on. Let me ask you about something that!s
coming up right now. They!re refurbishing the dioramas you did.
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
The dioramas for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, I was doing them and some for the Park Service. They wanted littler ones, but
that was very interesting from the standpoint of an artist. If you!re doing a painting on
a curved surface like this, perspective comes out all different. It was very intriguing to
try to do that, of course this is very literal art. You!ve got to paint the background so it
blends in with the foreground. I remember once, pardon me, I was painting away,
and this guy came by. This was a sealed off part of the museum, the public wasn!t
around, but this man had a nervous breakdown right there, right by me. “Oh, this is
terrible,” he says, “it!s cracked. I did the plaster work, and I never did this <unclear> I
didn!t know how to do it. I thought it would crack, it!s cracked.” So I got him by the
hand and took him over and said, “No, that!s just a line that was drawn to show where
the photograph goes.” But it was sort of a new departure for everybody, I guess,
and in those days, this was a government contract just like to build a building or
something, and some extremely unqualified people somehow got into all of this.
One guy that was doing some of the <unclear> we finally decided was just plain
color blind because his <unclear> came out mighty clear. But that!s not the way to
hire a professional of any kind, much less an artist, I!m afraid. Yeah, I did those for the
Smithsonian. I heard from them recently. They!re redoing all of that. I thought, well it
lasted 40 years anyway. Come down and see the old thing again if you want to. I
haven!t done that yet, but then the Park Service wanted, you know, they were about
maybe six feet and curved. I don!t know what!s become of all of them.
Speaker:
What were the Park Service dioramas of? I!ve seen the ones in the Museum of
Natural History, and we!re trying to save those, a few of them in the archive at the
Fish and Wildlife Service. They!re beautiful. What were the Park Service dioramas?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think there!s one down in Jamestown. They wanted to show what historic
views were like, so I <unclear> around down at Jamestown trying to figure out what
sort of house would have been on this foundation way back then or something. It
was interesting. What sort of things would be going on. Well, one thing that used to
go in the old days, the planters around would ride their horses in, and there were
nothing else around but little one horse trails. There were some really proper roads,
so they!d race to the dismay of the people trying to live there. That was kind of fun,
and there were the, I read all of the reports of the King!s Council or whatever the
governing body was to see what all had gone on. Everything had gone on, believe
me. Those old reports are kind of fun. We couldn!t show all of that, of course.
Speaker:
Let me ask you about the Rachel Carson Council. You helped establish that in
1965.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
What was the purpose behind it when you first set up?
Shirley Briggs:
Just to keep her ideas in the public eye, I guess.
Speaker:
When you set it up, you wanted to keep Rachel!s ideas alive, you said.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Were those ideas mainly scientific ideas or outlooks on nature? What ideas
specifically?
Shirley Briggs:
Both.
Speaker:
Would you like to elaborate a little on...
Shirley Briggs:
Elaborate, should have brought some of the early statements. Do you have any of
that?
Speaker:
Yeah, I!ve seen some of the early statements. I!m wondering, for you personally,
what do you think Rachel!s most important scientific ideas were?
Shirley Briggs:
Her genius in writing Silent Spring and everything else is being able to look at a vast
amount of detail and facts and history and put it together so it shows why it matters.
That is why it still matters now. That was her great talent.
Speaker:
What do you think her environmental philosophy was or her conservation
philosophy? Was it nature knows best?
Shirley Briggs:
Read Silent Spring.
Speaker:
I!ve read Silent, is it, you know, nature knows best or balance of nature, do you
think?
Shirley Briggs:
What do you mean by those things?
Speaker:
They!re vague terms, I agree. I mean, if you had to summarize, from your reading of
Silent Spring, what do you think her most important environmental ideas were?
Shirley Briggs:
Seeing the whole picture and putting it together as she was able to do. Not many
people can, but she did get Silent Spring written and hoped that she, by that writing
and others, had accomplished what she mainly wanted to do, and as you know, she
was quite ill and finished her work under severe difficulties.
Speaker:
Were you still seeing her regularly in the last year or so of her life when she was...
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t have correspondence with her that other people do because we were on the
<unclear> and if we wanted to communicate that easily.
Speaker:
Did she tell you ever what she hoped her legacy would be after she passed away?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she!d written it. She hoped she had it on record, which I think she did.
Speaker:
There was a lot of criticism of her when the book came out and afterwards, and as a
personal friend, that must have been a little difficult for you to hear. I mean, how...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, you knew if it was going to happen. There was no surprise in any of this. She
was bringing up the reasons that the dominant economic courses in the country were,
in some cases, opposed to. She was going to have opposition. She did in exactly
the quarters we expected so...
Speaker:
How did she react to that, and how did you react?
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, the same way. We knew it was going to happen. She hoped she had made
her case. In fact, enough to stand on its own, which as it had turned out, she had,
so...
Speaker:
It got very personal though. Did that bother you or bother her?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that!s the way those idiots always behaved. That!s what you expect from
nerds like that, you know.
Speaker:
Shirley, this is really helpful. We really appreciate it. It!s good to hear your own
words. Even though some of this stuff is written down, as you noted it, it!s good to
hear you saying it. It moves people.
Shirley Briggs:
You know, Linda did a marvelous job by that biography. She worked on it for about
ten years and kept calling me up, you know, who was at this occasion, what was, and
so I just refer everybody to that book. She quizzed me very thoroughly.
Speaker:
Let!s go back to the debate on Silent Spring after it came out in "62. Did you feel
that the government was supportive of Carson, the Department of Interior?
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah. It was Udall then, and he was a valiant supporter, but I!m not so sure about
the Department of Agriculture always, but Udall was splendid all along of that.
Speaker:
He was a good Secretary. We!re hoping to get him to participate in this Carson
conference we!re doing next year.
Shirley Briggs:
Where is now, clear out southwest somewhere?
Speaker:
Southwest, yes. He just published a new article in American, I think it was American
Heritage, American Heritage.
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, I haven!t seen that.
Speaker:
We!ll send you a copy through Linda.
Shirley Briggs:
Thank you, I appreciate it, yes, very much.
Speaker:
Do you think overall we made progress since Carson as regard to contaminants and
pesticides and so on?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yes, I think we have. I got out a book on it, big book. It!s a few years back,
though, A Basic Guide to Pesticides, which was the attempt to follow up, in a way, to
Silent Spring. I!d hear all the dull detailed cases, one, two, and three, all this stuff. I
hope it!s still available. Quite the fool, I gave the copyright to Rachel Carson
Council, I think, not knowing that any nitwit like this guy on the post was going to
show up and take that over. He owned the copyrights as long as you!re alive. I
thought, well, I!m getting kind of old, you know. Don!t ever do that. You may wish to
hang on.
Speaker:
You wrote your book a couple of decades after Carson!s book.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:
Were there things that Carson had missed that you noted, obviously?
Shirley Briggs:
No, what had gone on since, but it was just alphabetically. Here are all the chief
chemicals and what we know about them. It!s not anything you!d sit down and read
for fun. It wasn!t anything you wrote for fun either.
Speaker:
Now, you taught for awhile with, was it the USDA on conservation philosophies?
Was that...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, there is the graduate school of the USDA, which is not that <unclear> dealing
with what they!re doing, and under that, we have this series of courses, and that!s,
they take care of the keeping the books, and you would get paid a little for teaching it
<unclear> . They didn!t put any cap on that this last time, and I teach it at home, and I
ran out of chairs, but that is an entirely separate institution from the Department and its
daily workings.
Speaker:
What do you try and teach the students?
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
What do you teach the students?
Shirley Briggs:
Environmental philosophy.
Speaker:
What do you try and get across to them when they leave your course?
Shirley Briggs:
The sort of things we!re talking about, I guess. How has environmental
consciousness evolved, what!s the background of it in this country or wherever, what
issues have come up and been important and so on.
Speaker:
Where do you start? Do you start with John Murre or <unclear> or Rachel Carson?
Where do you begin your history?
Shirley Briggs:
Early 19th Century or before. I mean, what were the concepts way back when.
What have we built on and come to understand the environment better and all that.
Speaker:
Do you think there was a change in environmental philosophy in the 1960's with
Carson, your work, other folks in that period?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yeah, it!s evolved. Aldo Leopold and show what their concepts were, and
we!re up to that now. We hope we!re there and looking forward for sure.
Speaker:
Do you see Leopold and Carson as being similar in some ways in their
philosophies?
Shirley Briggs:
In every way, I would say, that they are the ones who expressed that, yes, I guess,
yeah. They were the Bibles, I thought that we have.
Speaker:
Let me ask you, Shirley, we!re talking about icons of the environmental movement
and the conservation movement. Did you have any inkling at the time you were
working with Rachel Carson and then up until Silent Spring that she is going to be
considered a patron saint in conservation, that my personal friend here is really not
only going to leave a legacy but is going to be regarded someday as a patron
saint? I mean, how did fame, and she was getting a lot of fame in the time you knew
her, a lot more since, but do you have any thoughts on the fame that surrounds
Rachel Carson, and did you expect to...
Shirley Briggs:
Well <unclear> so she is who we refer to now, Leopold, Carson, a few others that
kept up with the ideas and said them well, and this is how it evolved.
Speaker:
Did she or did you anticipate it, though?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she had written Silent Spring, and after that, she obviously had said it for all of
us.
Speaker:
It!s an interesting point though. We remember Leopold and Carson because, in
part, they were such good writers. You can reread their books again and again and...
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, you mean someone who not only knows it but can say it...
Speaker:
Yeah.
Shirley Briggs:
...from a persuasive way.
Speaker:
Can write it well. Do you think Carson learned any of that writing for the public while
she worked with Fish and Wildlife, while you guys worked together? Did she get
practice...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that!s where she was working, at Wildlife. How do you design and write these
standard government publications so that they will be believed by the public. She
learned a lot of that by editing all the reports in the Fish and Wildlife Service. She
was editor in chief, and my job was when she came upon a particularly ridiculous
sentence, she!d draw a picture of it, cartoons. I should have brought along a little
book I have, the cartoons I drew of Rachel and me through some of this. I drew it
just to let my mother know what was going on, but I do have these, we would go out
in the fields somewhere, and doggone it, by the time we got back, Rachel was still
neat as a pin, and I looked like the dickens. This was typical, and going out doing the
job <unclear> and so on. I keep thinking maybe I ought to do something with them.
A little descriptive writing of what it looked like, and there we are coming back from
something.
Speaker:
I!ve seen a few of the cartoons in Linda!s book.
Shirley Briggs:
I guess she did pick up a couple.
Speaker:
Yeah, they!re beautiful. I mean, you know, it!d be wonderful if you published just a
tiny thing of those cartoons.
Shirley Briggs:
How would I do that? Who would want to publish it?
Speaker:
Fish and Wildlife. Luckily, we have our editor from the publishing...
Shirley Briggs:
He should have wore a sticker.
Speaker:
David Klinger.
Speaker:
Yeah, maybe I could do it for you.
Speaker:
Do you want to collaborate on something?
Shirley Briggs:
Why not? I don!t seem to be getting it done myself.
Speaker:
But I really think you are on this, writing well preserves you in people!s memory and
it has a big effect.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
It goes in with you saying she synthesized the science and saw the whole picture.
Shirley Briggs:
Which ones did Linda pick up? I!ve forgotten.
Speaker:
I think one was from Chincoteague, actually.
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
There was a cartoon of going through a dumpster or a trash can. What was that?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, when Rachel was down at Myrtle Beach or somewhere, she would collect
stuff and then she would try to, if it was still alive, put it back, or if not, sneak out to the
municipal garbage can late at night and hide the smelly remains.
Speaker:
Here!s the two pictures that were in the, the two cartoons.
Shirley Briggs:
No, Rachel!s sunburned terribly, that!s what this one is, and there we are coming
back wherever we were staying at Chincoteague, and Rachel!s neat as a pin, and I
look pretty soggy.
Speaker:
How did she stay so neat while you got soggy?
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
Did she have a trick for staying so neat?
Shirley Briggs:
She just was neat. I don!t know how she did it. I used to watch her and, yeah, those
are the only cartoons that they, Linda did a remarkable job on that book, I must say.
Speaker:
Do you think she really caught the essence?
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
Did she leave anything out about Rachel that you would like to add?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t think so. Not that I could tell her. She was quizzing me all the time for several
years but...
Speaker:
We!ve talked about Leopold. We!ve talked about Carson!s philosophy. How
would you summarize your own environmental philosophy?
Shirley Briggs:
I believe what they did. I mean, they said it better, I suppose.
Speaker:
But what do you...
Shirley Briggs:
I like to think I!m in there camp, definitely.
Speaker:
Do you think people are coming around to their philosophy more now than in the
past?
Shirley Briggs:
Some people. Yeah, I think they!ve had quite an effect over the years. Not as
much as we would hope, but we still have the people like the <unclear> Chemical
Company and so on trying to put their case.
Speaker:
It was one of the biggest critics of Carson, <unclear> was. They sent out that
traveling show with Dr., what was it, White Stevens, would go out...
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, that awful man, but he was so awful that we rejoiced, because he was so much
the <unclear> of the industry that we hoped people would recognize. He was
terrible. Frank Edgar kept trying on the other side. Is he still around? I!m trying to
think of people I can refer you to. They!re dead.
Speaker:
Was it discouraging having to deal with people like that on the other side? I mean
did it get...
Shirley Briggs:
Some of them were so bad that we rejoiced that they were clearly seen as the other
side, yeah.
Speaker:
You were with Fish and Wildlife for what, about three years, but yet you!ve stayed
kind of in touch with the Agency.
Shirley Briggs:
With the Interior Department. This guy showed up and taken over my job at the
end of the war, but I was still in the Department, and I was still working for various
agencies if they had a project.
Speaker:
Through your life, you!ve kind of stayed in touch with your Fish and Wildlife
colleagues and friends.
Shirley Briggs:
You know, until this year, we had a Fish and Wildlife retirees group that met for lunch
once a month, but I haven!t heard from them this year.
Speaker:
Was that the group Jo Quinter....
Shirley Briggs:
Who?
Speaker:
Jo Quinter, was she in that group?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t remember that name.
Speaker:
She had told me about a group that used to meet for lunch.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
And it just fell apart. We!re setting that back up again.
Shirley Briggs:
Oh good, that was always fun.
Speaker:
Jo is spearheading it. She lives in McLean, Virginia, and we!re sending the retirees
Fish and Wildlife News again, and we actually have a retiree reunion once a year
now out at NCTC. So we!re trying to maintain these connections.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, there was still quite a few people in that group that went way back, and I was
trying to find out what had happened to it.
Speaker:
So you!ve kept up with a number of those people through the years, Fish and
Wildlife people.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, and that group especially, of course. They tended to go back to my time.
Speaker:
What made Fish and Wildlife people special? I mean, it!s...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, you know, are there other agencies that <unclear> or not? I don!t know
anything about any others, but we were a group of people who shared concern and
interest in conservation, environment, and what Interior is up to now, and all that sort
of thing. I don!t know how to compare them with anyone else. But if you!re in touch
with some revival there....
Speaker:
I will have them contact you.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Because I know exactly the group you!re talking about. Do you think we!ve done a
good job, Fish and Wildlife, of carrying out Rachel!s legacy?
Shirley Briggs:
Best they could. They have the same problems she had, I guess, of the, reaching
the public.
Speaker:
What do you feel most proud of in the career that you had and the work that you!ve
done? What would you consider your greatest contribution?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m not sure I had one. I just kept pegging away at this sort of thing as occasion
permitted. That Basic Guide to Pesticide was the thing I worked on most recently,
and I have kept up with that toxicology through the years. That!s been the main
thing I guess.
Speaker:
Was that subject difficult for you, because you were trained in art, right? You
weren!t...
Shirley Briggs:
You seem to think people just do one thing, hogwash. I was brought up for a broad
based education. I grew up in a University. I recommend this. Whatever a kid is
interested in, there!s some expert on the fact that will take him out and show him the
mother flies or whatever. My father was a professor of political science, in which I
have a great interest, too. If you can do some drawing on the side, that doesn!t
mean that!s all you!re interested in. You have to have a focus and a subject.
Speaker:
That!s an interesting point. Do you think having an interest in art, though, also caused
you to see things in a different way, to see nature differently, to see science
differently?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I suppose you do. That gives you an angle, but how different, I don!t know.
Speaker:
Your expertise, though, in chemistry and toxicology and contaminants, did that
develop...
Shirley Briggs:
I should have taken more chemistry, looking back. I also should have learned
Japanese but I...
Speaker:
Did you draw on that, though? From your relationship with Rachel Carson, do you
think your knowledge in that area was increased, or did you just...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think so. She was, of course had edited all the original research on that and
was very concerned about it, yeah.
Speaker:
In one way you followed Carson, though. I mean, because her expertise was
marine biology, and then she made herself expert on toxicology, and it was the
same with you. I mean you...
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, I didn!t study it in college, but it was something that mainly effected the things I
was working on. I could have brought along a copy of Basic Guide to Pesticides
and showed you but I...
Speaker:
Next time we!ll bring along a copy and have you sign it.
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
Next time we!ll bring along a copy of the book and ask you to sign it, and then we!ll
put it back in our library.
Shirley Briggs:
Fine, you have it.
...things lately. I was reading some of her Emily Dickinson connections.
Speaker:
This is the woman who was Emily Dickinson!s editor first? What was she, was she
the first editor of the Dickinson papers?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, her mother was the first one to get any of the poems published, and she knew
all about this.
Speaker:
She had a huge house and refuge on some island in the...
Speaker:
Oh, this is Millicent Todd Bingham.
Speaker:
Yeah, right.
Speaker:
Yeah, the Audubon camp at which I worked at in Maine on Hog Island.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Where did you and Rachel go to see here? It wasn!t at Hog Island, it was down...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she lived here.
Speaker:
Yeah, okay. So that!s what we want to talk about. But you went to some place on
the eastern shore.
Shirley Briggs:
Did she?
Speaker:
Well, I have pictures, and it wasn!t...
Shirley Briggs:
Not on the eastern shore.
Speaker:
Okay, well then...
Shirley Briggs:
Maine.
Speaker:
Was it Hog Island then?
Shirley Briggs:
It was Boothbay.
Speaker:
Was she on the board of the Audubon ever?
Shirley Briggs:
Always, she went way back. I picked up recently a couple of her books based on
the Dickinson business, Emily Dickinson!s home and the other one. So I!m much
reminded of Mrs. Bingham. She was, and her husband, too, was extremely nice,
scientist and <unclear> amazingly.
Speaker:
Yeah, I!ve read a little biography of her, and she was a fascinating person and all the
work they did in Maine and how that camp was established.
Shirley Briggs:
What biography?
Speaker:
Well, it was a little, actually a little write up of how her property there in Maine, the
Hog Island property got deeded over to the camp and got established in the
1930's.
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, she kept trying to find someone that would do that sort of thing with it.
Speaker:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I was just up there a couple, a year or two ago. It!s still going
strong. It!s a wonderful place.
Shirley, could you tell us a little bit about doing some of the birding with Rachel and
Christmas counts?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, we were out on our own some, but we <unclear> with the local groups who did
this systematically, and the important thing in this is to keep the records year after
year after year in a consistent way. So we got involved with the Audubon Naturalist
Society principally, and until I got so I couldn!t hear the higher notes, I used to keep
up with that. I!m not so good at it anymore, either on the higher notes of the birds or
the steeper slopes of the park, but I did it for a long time, and people are going on
with it, of course.
Speaker:
People said you were a very good birder. Did that effect how you observed natural
at all, your birding?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m not that bad as a botanist either, I like to think. That I had studied in college to
some extent. I just knew people when I looked for birds, and my, both my parents
had had a course in ornithology in college, for heaven!s sake, so this wasn!t anything I
picked up. That!s what you did.
Speaker:
You said you drifted into the National Audubon Society, you worked with them. Do
you have any remembrances of Howard Zahnizer?
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, Zahnie. There was a splendid person. Yeah, I met one of the best people in
that group. He was just a splendid person and was, of course, working on the sort of
things we all thought were important.
Speaker:
What were some of these things that Zahnie was working on?
Shirley Briggs:
Preserving the records of the, and noticing what was happening in the wilderness
areas and so on. What do you know about Zahnie?
Speaker:
Well, he worked for Fish and Wildlife, so he was a...
Shirley Briggs:
That!s right.
Speaker:
Did you <unclear> actions with him? Was he still in the Agency when you worked for
us?
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
was Zahnie still in Fish and Wildlife when you were working for us?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t remember. I knew him, whether from the office or some of these other outfits.
Speaker:
Roger Torrey Peterson was also active in the National Audubon Society.
Shirley Briggs:
Old <unclear>, yes. I miss him. I used to be able to write and ask him questions
down there. Who was it, I was reading something that somebody had, a cat or
something named, that they named Rajah Torrey Peterson in honor of Roger. But
yeah, he was very active in all of this.
Speaker:
Any other folks from the National Audubon Society you remember as friends?
Shirley Briggs:
Now there are different things here. National Audubon is a crew up in New York
City. It is not the Audubon Naturalist Society. They!re not connected or were ever.
Speaker:
What about the Audubon Naturalist Society?
Shirley Briggs:
That is in this region, yeah, and it goes back to 1895, which predates the crew up in
New York, so we were proud of that. It was just a good, effective regional group
that everybody belonged to and worked with.
Speaker:
Do you remember some of the fights you had in that group, what you fought for in
the environment?
Shirley Briggs:
There you go, it!s always a fight or a struggle. Some things just evolve, you know. I
don!t remember any particular fight. Did something come to mind?
Speaker:
Fighting for habitat or against roads or anything that...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that road down <unclear> we all rose up about, but I don!t know that we were
so much into lobbying and worrying about legislation, but if there was...
Speaker:
Island Beach, Shirley, tell them about Island Beach. This fits right in. Do you
remember when you and Rachel went down to Island Beach off the coast off...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that!s the Barrier Island.
Speaker:
Barrier Island, and you were both interested in trying to, Rachel got interested in
trying to save it. It was in private hands.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
This was the time when they were going to ruin, take over those islands, and Rachel
wrote a piece about it.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, well we went over there and explored it.
Speaker:
Yeah, but remember there was a hurricane that came and you had to get out of there
real fast.
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, Rachel kind of regretted that. She!d always wanted to be in a hurricane and
see what it was like, but we didn!t want <unclear>. Later sometime, a hurricane came
through Boothbay Harbor somewhere, and she decided she had had more than
enough of that, but this illustrates her curiosity and interest in natural phenomenon, I
guess.
Speaker:
Did you travel with Rachel in Maine at like Boothbay Harbor and so on?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yeah, I used to like to get up there whenever I could. This was one of my
favorite places, too.
Speaker:
Why did you and Rachel love Maine so much? What was special about Maine,
because she obviously cared about it?
Shirley Briggs:
Ever been there?
Speaker:
Oh, yeah.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, then how do you think it!s special?
Speaker:
Well you know, I love Acadia National Park and the seashore and so on, but I!m
curious about what attracted...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, it was a fascinating part of the shore. Rachel wrote a whole book on the
seashore, one of her best, and it was. We just both liked it there. You can!t go into
all the reasons why you like a place just off hand usually.
Speaker:
What did you used to do with her? What were your common activities when you
were on the road with her, say, in Maine?
Shirley Briggs:
She kept trying to teach me how to play...
Speaker:
Pinochle.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, and she never managed very well. I never got any good at pinochle.
Speaker:
So if you didn!t play pinochle, what did you do in the evenings? Did you talk, have
tea, star watch? What were some of the, did you spend a lot of time actually doing
natural history type things?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I suppose so. It!s a very interesting place, you go out and notice.
Speaker:
Now, were you gathering material for your art when you went on these field trips?
Did you sketch?
Shirley Briggs:
No.
Speaker:
You didn!t sketch?
Shirley Briggs:
You!ve got a phobia about this art thing. That!s a side issue. It!s something you do
if you!re doing illustrations or something. It!s not that you go out looking for
something to draw especially, unless you have a purpose.
Speaker:
Tell me about your diaries that you!ve kept.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I just have kept one. It!s not one of these where you philosophize. I just
found it useful in having a poor memory, to jot down when things happened, and
that!s what Linda kept pestering about all the time she was writing the book.
Sometimes I just noted this happened, these people were there or something.
Speaker:
When Carson passed on, did you look back in your diary just out of curiosity just to
see...
Shirley Briggs:
<Unclear> to do that.
Speaker:
Tell me about your interest in photography.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I just always did it. My father always did it. We had a darkroom in the
basement. Started out with a brownie and worked up. I now have some rather
fancy equipment, but I haven!t been using it much lately. This is just something that
was done. Most of these things just was a family interest or whatever.
Speaker:
Did you take a lot of pictures of Rachel Carson?
Shirley Briggs:
I seem to have the only collection of them. That!s what I do nowadays, I answer
requests. What do I have of Rachel Carson? I!ve got a little catalog of photocopies
that are not terribly good photographic quality, but you can tell whether she!s
outdoors or in or something. I guess that!s my main contribution to the cause is the
<unclear> I have of the pictures, largely because I had taken quite a few of them, and
some people have given me them, and I have got copy negatives of all of them so
I can get prints made. I have given up keeping my darkroom in the basement all
fired up. That!s too much bother. I just take them down the street to somewhere
and they can print, but I can do all the darkroom stuff if I got that ambitious, I guess.
Speaker:
Do you have a favorite picture of Rachel?
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
Do you have a favorite picture of Rachel out of your whole collection, one you think is
particularly nice?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, it depends on whether you want it indoors or out, old or young. I!ve got an
awfully nice one of her about five years old. It was one of the family negatives that I
guess her brother or somebody came up with. Her brother!s a character. I guess
he!s gone now, too. I forget, I!ve lost it.
Speaker:
What about any shots on trips you and Rachel took together? Do you have any
pictures you really liked from those times?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t remember. Some, I guess. I!ve got...
...Rachel and Buckle who was the refuge manager down at Chincoteague. Now
she!s certainly long gone.
Speaker:
Kay Howell.
Shirley Briggs:
She!s still there out in Salt Lake City, the last I called.
Speaker:
Do you think she!d be a good person for us to interview?
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Why?
Shirley Briggs:
She was involved with all of this. She!s good looking or always was. She!d come
out well. She!s positive.
Speaker:
What are your memories of the three of you working together? Were you kind of a
tight knit bunch?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, we were in adjoining offices and Burt Walford and so on. We would, I think this
business we did in the closet heating water for afternoon tea was illegal, actually, but
we did it. We just, twice a day or so, we would get together and compare notes.
Speaker:
What would you talk about over your tea?
Shirley Briggs:
Everything, what was going on in the office or outside. I told you there were more
parties going on, which Kay was always kind of involved. At least the last time I tried
to call her, there was still Mary Francis Howell, who I think shared an apartment with
Kay or something. She might remember some of this, I don!t know. She was still
around, at least.
Speaker:
You!ve had a really diverse career, you!ve done a lot of things, you!ve got a lot of...
Shirley Briggs:
Scatter brained.
Speaker:
Well, that would be one way of characterizing it, but I look at you and I say, there!s a
real renaissance woman who!s done a lot of things and a lot of interests. What kept
you going through the years? Tell me a little bit more about how these diverse
interests, how you!ve made...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, life is more interesting if you!re involved in more things. Haven!t you found that
to be true?
Speaker:
Absolutely, but I!m overwhelmed by the things, the interests that you have and the
things that you!ve developed on your own.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think I was brought up, I say, if you grow up in the University, you!re aware of
a range of stuff.
Speaker:
So you really do credit your family and your early years with sparking all these
different interests?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I suppose. Isn!t that true of anybody often?
Speaker:
Is there one thing you always had a strong passion for throughout your life?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m a little leery of that word passion. I think we!ve touched on most everything.
Speaker:
Sounds like a good place to end, and let us thank you very much, Shirley, for
agreeing to talk to us, and we really appreciate your insights.
Shirley Briggs:
Do look up those retirees for heaven!s sake.
Speaker:
I will get that information.
Shirley Briggs:
There was so, I don!t know who was still around. Bob Hines used to come. He was
one you should have talked to.
Speaker:
Tell us about Bob.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, he materialized from, they found him out in Ohio or something. I!m going to
sneeze.
Speaker:
Bless you.
Shirley Briggs:
I guess that will do something to the soundtrack. Anyway, he showed up and
proved to be thoroughly compatible. He was under Rachel for as long as they both
were there, I guess. I miss Bob. He was fun, but he could have told you quite a bit
about Rachel, no doubt, but he!s gone, too.
Speaker:
You and Bob shared a passion for or a liking for photography, right? He took lots of
pictures, my understanding is when he was in the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, maybe some, yeah, and he, of course, maintained a marvelous file of
drawings in everything. If you needed this duck or that moose or something.
Speaker:
What did you think of his art and did you...
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
What did you think of his artwork, and did you all collaborate on things or has one...
Shirley Briggs:
No, I wasn!t in <unclear>.
Speaker:
But as one artist to another, did you all ever talk shop?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, he, I would say the work he did, not an inspired visionary artist, just a good
everyday, get the stuff out that somebody wants.
Speaker:
I always ask this question in every interview I do with former Fish and Wildlife
employees like yourself. What advise would you give to people entering Fish and
Wildlife Service, new employees who are just starting their careers? You!ve had a
long and varied career. Do you have any advise for people who are getting
started?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, they will all have listened to this excellent tape they!ve got now.
Speaker:
I didn!t prompt, I didn!t pay you for that endorsement. I!ll let the record...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, very sensible, if they focused on it, this is what new people need to know, and
they did a good job.
Speaker:
Do you have any personal advise you!d give from your experience in government
and in other jobs that you!ve had? What do you say to somebody like your
students in your conservation classes who were kind of getting into this business?
Shirley Briggs:
Well they may already be in, they come from various agencies and interests.
Speaker:
Any advise?
Shirley Briggs:
Just find out what!s going on and really see how their ideas jive, I guess. Every now
and then I get someone who!s work leads them into this or who ought to find a job
that would be into it, and I, of course, don!t know what all the jobs are anymore.
Speaker:
What!s the best advise you ever got in your career?
Shirley Briggs:
That is one of these utterly impossible questions to ask.
Speaker:
Nothing!s...
Shirley Briggs:
It!s too vague and general.
Speaker:
Well, did you have a role model in your career in the government or in your career in
art? Did you pattern yourself after anyone or look up to anyone?
Shirley Briggs:
Not anyone, no. I don!t think people do that, do you?
Speaker:
Well, I think everyone!s different.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Was there anyone in particular you looked up to for guidance as a young
employee?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, Clarence Cottom was around, Rachel was around. I don!t know, depending
on what came up.
Speaker:
Did you have a job that was your favorite?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t know, and then there was, I forget names now. Who was head of Fish and
Wildlife in those days?
Speaker:
Was it Day?
Shirley Briggs:
Looked like a grizzly bear.
Speaker:
Albert Day?
Shirley Briggs:
He didn!t look like a grizzly bear.
Speaker:
No, Al Day didn!t.
Speaker:
Prior to Al Day, in the late "40's, it wasn!t Gabrielson?
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, Gabe.
Speaker:
Tell us about Isaac Gabrielson.
Shirley Briggs:
Both my folks had been in college with him. We figured hew as probably, of all the
graduates at Morningside College, he was the most, what!s the word I!m, he!s more
dirty language. The rest of them were quite proper. No, he was a marvelous
character. I enjoyed knowing him.
Speaker:
What did you like especially about him?
Shirley Briggs:
I think more than anyone else, he looked like a grizzly bear. But no, he knew the
field, and he was very articulate and active, vivid in his commentary.
Speaker:
He took an interest in what you folks were doing with publications and so on?
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, but we took an interest in what he was doing with the whole outfit. That!s the
main way it went.
Speaker:
Thank you so much, Shirley. We really appreciate this.
Shirley Briggs:
I hope I haven!t led you astray.
Speaker:
You have not, clarified very much of our history, and we just appreciate your time,
and we thank you so much for this.
Shirley Briggs:
I!ve got a lot of time.
Speaker:
I!m glad you loaned us a little of it.

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Interview with Shirley Briggs
Speaker:
...interesting and some which you may find less useful, and we!ll just go through this.
Shirley Briggs:
You sent me something on what might come up and it struck me as questions that
were unanswerable in most cases.
Speaker:
Well, then just tell me, and we!ll go on. But really, the questions I!m going to ask
you, we just want to know more about your career, the three years you worked with
us and Fish and Wildlife, what you went on to do, and then just...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I was in the Department of the Interior.
Speaker:
Yes, yes.
Shirley Briggs:
And I could tell you something about the Bureau of Reclamation.
Speaker:
We!d like to hear all of that.
Shirley Briggs:
Other outfits I dealt with there.
Speaker:
Great, but we!ll ask you those, and just try and get a sense of the time and to your
important conservation work and contributions. Does that sound reasonable?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, . I mean, this is just, they called it environment, I think, which was a
big, broad, meaningless word.
Speaker:
Shirley, if you don!t mind, we!d like to start near the beginning with what inspired you
to study art in college. What made you want to be an artist?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I don!t know. I just that seemed to be a major subject for graduate
school, and I had more interest in sculpting. Whatever else, I don!t know. I just
always did that.
Speaker:
What type of art interested you? Were you interested in...
Shirley Briggs:
I have a Master!s Degree in sculptor, for heaven!s sake, which I have not had much
occasion to do recently. No, in recent years I!ve mainly done drawings. I!ve done
quite a bit of illustration. Once a year I try to do a drawing so I can send something
out for New Years. I!ve got quite a pile of them by now.
Speaker:
How did you move from later on teaching art at North Dakota State?
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
Apparently you taught art for a little while at North Dakota State.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, here and there.
Speaker:
Then you eventually moved to the Washington area. What pulled you out here?
Shirley Briggs:
Let me see if I can remember. Well, I!ve always been here some. I had an uncle
who lived here. It was a familiar, homey place, but what did bring me here really?
It!ll come to me. Was it the government job? Probably.
Speaker:
Didn!t you work for a defense contractor?
Shirley Briggs?
What? Pardon me. You aren!t speaking clearly or loudly enough.
Speaker:
Did you initially work for aircraft...
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, Martin Aircraft, yeah, which now has a different name.
Speaker:
What were you doing for them?
Shirley Briggs:
Drawings. I can illustrate probably still obsolete airplanes. Yeah, it was very
interesting. I found a sculptor came in handy. I can look at an engineering drawing of
something and visualize it and draw it in ordinary perspective.
Speaker:
That!s good. So how did you end up working for Fish and Wildlife? How did you
go from Martin Aircraft to Fish and Wildlife Service?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m not sure. It may come to me. I was in the area, and that!s something I was
always interested in. I fell in with Rachel Carson, of course, which our offices were
nearby, Department of Interior. We both liked to go out and explore the
countryside and look for birds and all that sort of thing and was sort of the transition, I
guess.
Speaker:
Shirley, what were your initial impressions of Rachel when you started with us?
Shirley Briggs:
She was more fun than anybody else.
Speaker:
Why so?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she just was. No, she was so aware of everything that was going on and
could see all of the inconsistencies and hilarity and what not, not all these dreary
things that come up in the bureaucratic situation. She could make them hilarious.
There was a man at the Government Printing Office named that we had a
terrible time with getting things properly designed and printed, because she cared a
great deal that things were well done in that department, and we both liked to go out
at the out of doors, and that was fun. She was so aware of everything. You saw a
lot more if you were out with her somehow.
Speaker:
What do you mean? Did she more birds than you or look at them in a different
way?
Shirley Briggs:
Everything, not just birds. But I mean, she was so conscious of the whole scene.
Very bright people tend to be, and she was a very bright person.
Speaker:
Now, did you go on excursions for work, or did you go after work or on weekends?
Shirley Briggs:
Well no, this was after, we didn!t go off in the middle of the day, no. But she was
writing the Conservation in Action series, and I went with her doing the fieldwork from
Chincoteague, and I didn!t get to go on no longer when she called Kate Howell out in
Salt Lake City. From then she got to go cross country a little more than I did.
Speaker:
Do you remember anything from the Chincoteague trip with Rachel?
Shirley Briggs:
Anything, well we were just a little fascinated by exploring it and meeting the people
who were working down there and seeing the refuge area and so on.
Speaker:
Carson!s interest was the oceans, right, and you were from the mid-west, from my
understanding. Where were you born?
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, I!m from Iowa, but I had always had an uncle here in Washington whom we
visited a good deal, so this was familiar territory.
Speaker:
Did Carson help you appreciate the ocean at all, when you went to Chincoteague
and some of these places?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I never managed to get to the ocean, and when Rachel discovered that, we
rushed right over. I mean, this was something you had to get to right away, and if
you, where are you from?
Speaker:
Wisconsin.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, well then you understand. The ocean has a certain fascination for land based
people, and I was very keen on seeing the ocean and learning all I could from
Rachel, who was quite up on this, of course.
Speaker:
What were you doing for the Fish and Wildlife Service? What type of illustrations
were you making for them?
Shirley Briggs:
Information Specialist was the title. That meant writing, illustrating, designing
publications, that whole field.
Speaker:
What was your relationship with the biologists in the Fish and Wildlife Service that
would feed you information?
Shirley Briggs:
Who?
Speaker:
The biologists in the field and so on, like Chincoteague and these places.
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t think I had a relationship with them. We were just all working on the same
thing.
Speaker:
Well, what type of projects did you tend to work on?
Shirley Briggs:
Whatever, well look at the Conservation in Action series, things like that, or there was
a fisheries publication that came out. I seemed to have made fish a good deal, you
know, that was how you referred to it. She is the fish, she is the something else.
Speaker:
What about drawing fish or drawing birds and so on, did your sculpting work help
you with that or your birding help you with that?
Shirley Briggs:
I was trained as an artist. You learn how to do, look at something and draw
not imaginative, far out psychological things. These are just literal drawings which are
the simplest kind.
Speaker:
Would you draw them from a picture, or would you have a stuffed bird or fish, or
would you draw them outside from nature?
Shirley Briggs:
It was mostly by photographs. I wasn!t out chasing a trout down a brook or
something. That would have been a little difficult.
Speaker:
But they!re mostly photographs that you drew from.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yes.
Speaker:
What about the role of nature art, nature illustration in promoting conservation or
environmentalism?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think it!s been very important, try to make it look good for people who don!t
see why all these creatures mattered. That!s what the writing!s about.
Speaker:
Now you said you did writing in addition to illustrating.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, that!s what an Information Specialist does, anything that comes up. It was an
all purpose title.
Speaker:
Shirley, what time period, what years were you in the Fish and Wildlife Service?
Shirley Briggs:
I ought to have some reference material to look that up, I suppose.
Speaker:
Well, approximately, what era did you come in to Fish and Wildlife? We don!t have
to have the exact years.
Shirley Briggs:
When was it? Do you have the years Rachel was there?
Speaker:
"36 to "52. I!ve got down in my notes you entered in "45 and left in "48. Does that
sound right?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yeah.
Speaker:
So you were in Washington right at the tail end of the war and the Fish and Wildlife
Service had come back from Chicago and consolidated there.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:
What was it like working in Fish and Wildlife in that era? Do you remember any of
the issues that were going on or any of the priorities that you all were focused on in
the mid-1940's?
Shirley Briggs:
What records do you have of what was going on that might...
Speaker:
Well, I would think that Fish and Wildlife, having been kind of moved out of
Washington during the war and sort of in caretaker status, coming back, I would
imagine you were probably kind of gearing back up at the end of the war but...
Shirley Briggs:
I suppose. Do you have anything on Dr. Lionel Albert ?
Speaker:
I don!t believe we do.
Shirley Briggs:
He was one of the top people and, Burt, we called him. He and Rachel, I think, had
an office together, and he was a fascinating person. He wrote plays and things, very
literate, and was more concerned, I think, with the issues. Look him up. He!s
departed. He has a daughter somewhere I talk to occasionally.
Speaker:
You mentioned Conservation in Action, that series. Chincoteague was the first issue
of it, and that!s very interesting, because it was one of the first times our agency had
tried to communicate with the broad public, to try and explain what the refuge...
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, and both Burt and Rachel were much concerned with how government
publications looked. Before that they!d been the dreariest things you, well you!ve
got a few probably. But they thought government publications should be as classy
and striking and attractive as any commercial one or more so. It!s important that the
government expresses itself well, and Rachel had worked with that sort of thing, of
course, trying to write up or edit all these reports so that somebody might actually
read them. So there was much concern with fonts and type and illustrations and so
on.
Speaker:
Is that what she was fighting with this Mr. about all the time, he didn!t want
to spend money on that?
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, yes. He never wanted to do anything different or, in those days, whether
anything actually got printed in more than black ink was a great issue. We were
always battling for a color or two somewhere. That was pretty far out.
Speaker:
It!s striking, because the Conservation in Action, I mean, they have striking covers.
They!re blue, they!re green, they!re red. She must have fought hard to get them to
publish those with the good looking covers and rich photographs inside of them.
Shirley Briggs:
It was for our great issues.
Speaker:
Where did you go to work after Fish and Wildlife? You said you stayed in Interior.
Shirley Briggs:
Well I, you see, this is the war years. You couldn!t get a permanent rating, and
somebody came along who had been in there before and pushed me out of my
job or something. There was a place with the Bureau of Reclamation. That!s how I
got into all the damn builders. I could have brought you some examples. I
probably tried to glamorize that, too. But while there I also did various jobs for
anyone else in the Department. There weren!t many graphic sections around at the
time.
Speaker:
Was it hard being a woman in Department of Interior in this period?
Shirley Briggs:
No. Now, there you go, sexism. No, I never found that there was any issue. The
Bureau of Mines, I did quite a bit with. I didn!t bother them, I don!t think. If you were,
you know, in the job and in the rating, why there you were. I don!t know how it was
out in commercial life, but it was fine in the government.
Speaker:
The government was a fine place to work. Did you ever have any discussions with
Rachel Carson about being a woman in government service, or did she ever talk to
you about the fact that you guys were, there were a very limited number of women
in professional jobs?
Shirley Briggs:
Rachel , I think, were the only ones in a professional level in Fish and
Wildlife at that time, but that was partly because the information, publishing end of it
was kind of slim, too.
Speaker:
But did you recall any discussions you may have had on that issue with her, or did it
ever come up?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t think it ever came up. If you were competent and qualified and you did the
job, fine. No one was making a big issue of it, as I recall. This was, as you
mentioned, the end of the war. There weren!t qualified people available much.
Speaker:
What!s your earliest memory of Rachel Carson in like your first meeting? Can you
tell us about that?
Shirley Briggs:
Do you do much trying to remember what things were like that far back?
Speaker:
It gets harder and harder with ever year.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she was a delightful person, and we liked to do a lot of the same things, and so
did her mother. She came along sometimes. We just were both interested in the
same, it!s always nice to find someone like that.
Speaker:
Now, there was a difference in age. You were younger than Rachel Carson, right?
Shirley Briggs:
Somewhat, but now I!m older than everybody.
Speaker:
But Shirley, one of the things that came up in Linda!s book that!s very interesting is
you and Rachel and Kay and Rachel!s mother used to socialize, and did that...
Shirley Briggs:
We had more parties than I can see how we squeezed in. It was a very sociable
time. There were quite a lot of people in Washington who had been here for the
war and so on and were away from their own locations, and we just had little parties.
There was a lot of socializing. I think I!ve commented some on it, I was amazed how
much of this sort of thing went on. Where did we find the time? Well, we didn!t have
much else to do.
Speaker:
They truly were the good old days, all those parties. What about, you said you
liked going birding and on excursions and so on. Did those experiences come back
into your work at all? Did you have a stronger feeling for nature illustration, do you
think, because you went out, because some people don!t, some people would
justent out with? There were quite a few naturalists, well known, in this area. Can
you tell me a little bit about other personalities you and Rachel encountered?
Shirley Briggs:
Lewis , ran into him up at the Canal, I think. Is he still alive? I!m not sure.
But he was a noted writer in the field and appreciated Rachel!s skill at this. Clarence
Cottom was, of course, he was always very congenial and good friend. I get to
feeling older and older when I drudge up these people. They!re long gone. What
names occur to you?
Speaker:
Clarence Cottom is one.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
I mean, he!s very important to Rachel!s work and that whole period.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Did you have any remembrances about Clarence, I mean...
Shirley Briggs:
Cottom?
Speaker:
Yeah.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, he was just one of the better people who was trying to get the correct
information out always.
Speaker:
Did you have a chance to go up to Patuxent at all while you were working with Fish
and Wildlife?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, there was John George was out there and was in the Washington office some.
Alas, he!s now gone, darn it. I got a nice little folder from his memorial service with a
good picture of him. But Cottom and John and some people I!d rather not, they
weren!t all that great, you know. There were some duds.
Speaker:
Can you remember any of the duds, or have you purged them from your memory?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that might occur to me eventually. I never had much to do with them, if I could
help it, nor did John. Who else was there? I am one of the queer people in this
world that has kept a diary since I was child. I can sometimes go back through those,
but I haven!t had occasion to do it here. They said they wanted all my papers,
some woman!s, Iowa Women!s Archive out of Iowa City, and I thought well, maybe
I ought to just send all of that, but people like you keep showing up and want...
Speaker:
Don!t send them yet. We!d like to keep on tapping you for information or, you
know, ask about those years. What about after Reclamation, you worked with the
Audubon, the magazine, the Audubon Naturalists. Was that a change from what
you!d been doing previously?
Shirley Briggs:
Not especially. I!m trying to think about that. I seem to remember that more as a
spare time connection, but it was one of the private outfits. It was doing the right sort
of thing. I should have done more research on this, what did I do when.
Speaker:
Well, you just were editing it and so on. Let me ask you about something that!s
coming up right now. They!re refurbishing the dioramas you did.
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
The dioramas for the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, I was doing them and some for the Park Service. They wanted littler ones, but
that was very interesting from the standpoint of an artist. If you!re doing a painting on
a curved surface like this, perspective comes out all different. It was very intriguing to
try to do that, of course this is very literal art. You!ve got to paint the background so it
blends in with the foreground. I remember once, pardon me, I was painting away,
and this guy came by. This was a sealed off part of the museum, the public wasn!t
around, but this man had a nervous breakdown right there, right by me. “Oh, this is
terrible,” he says, “it!s cracked. I did the plaster work, and I never did this I
didn!t know how to do it. I thought it would crack, it!s cracked.” So I got him by the
hand and took him over and said, “No, that!s just a line that was drawn to show where
the photograph goes.” But it was sort of a new departure for everybody, I guess,
and in those days, this was a government contract just like to build a building or
something, and some extremely unqualified people somehow got into all of this.
One guy that was doing some of the we finally decided was just plain
color blind because his came out mighty clear. But that!s not the way to
hire a professional of any kind, much less an artist, I!m afraid. Yeah, I did those for the
Smithsonian. I heard from them recently. They!re redoing all of that. I thought, well it
lasted 40 years anyway. Come down and see the old thing again if you want to. I
haven!t done that yet, but then the Park Service wanted, you know, they were about
maybe six feet and curved. I don!t know what!s become of all of them.
Speaker:
What were the Park Service dioramas of? I!ve seen the ones in the Museum of
Natural History, and we!re trying to save those, a few of them in the archive at the
Fish and Wildlife Service. They!re beautiful. What were the Park Service dioramas?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think there!s one down in Jamestown. They wanted to show what historic
views were like, so I around down at Jamestown trying to figure out what
sort of house would have been on this foundation way back then or something. It
was interesting. What sort of things would be going on. Well, one thing that used to
go in the old days, the planters around would ride their horses in, and there were
nothing else around but little one horse trails. There were some really proper roads,
so they!d race to the dismay of the people trying to live there. That was kind of fun,
and there were the, I read all of the reports of the King!s Council or whatever the
governing body was to see what all had gone on. Everything had gone on, believe
me. Those old reports are kind of fun. We couldn!t show all of that, of course.
Speaker:
Let me ask you about the Rachel Carson Council. You helped establish that in
1965.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
What was the purpose behind it when you first set up?
Shirley Briggs:
Just to keep her ideas in the public eye, I guess.
Speaker:
When you set it up, you wanted to keep Rachel!s ideas alive, you said.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Were those ideas mainly scientific ideas or outlooks on nature? What ideas
specifically?
Shirley Briggs:
Both.
Speaker:
Would you like to elaborate a little on...
Shirley Briggs:
Elaborate, should have brought some of the early statements. Do you have any of
that?
Speaker:
Yeah, I!ve seen some of the early statements. I!m wondering, for you personally,
what do you think Rachel!s most important scientific ideas were?
Shirley Briggs:
Her genius in writing Silent Spring and everything else is being able to look at a vast
amount of detail and facts and history and put it together so it shows why it matters.
That is why it still matters now. That was her great talent.
Speaker:
What do you think her environmental philosophy was or her conservation
philosophy? Was it nature knows best?
Shirley Briggs:
Read Silent Spring.
Speaker:
I!ve read Silent, is it, you know, nature knows best or balance of nature, do you
think?
Shirley Briggs:
What do you mean by those things?
Speaker:
They!re vague terms, I agree. I mean, if you had to summarize, from your reading of
Silent Spring, what do you think her most important environmental ideas were?
Shirley Briggs:
Seeing the whole picture and putting it together as she was able to do. Not many
people can, but she did get Silent Spring written and hoped that she, by that writing
and others, had accomplished what she mainly wanted to do, and as you know, she
was quite ill and finished her work under severe difficulties.
Speaker:
Were you still seeing her regularly in the last year or so of her life when she was...
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t have correspondence with her that other people do because we were on the
and if we wanted to communicate that easily.
Speaker:
Did she tell you ever what she hoped her legacy would be after she passed away?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she!d written it. She hoped she had it on record, which I think she did.
Speaker:
There was a lot of criticism of her when the book came out and afterwards, and as a
personal friend, that must have been a little difficult for you to hear. I mean, how...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, you knew if it was going to happen. There was no surprise in any of this. She
was bringing up the reasons that the dominant economic courses in the country were,
in some cases, opposed to. She was going to have opposition. She did in exactly
the quarters we expected so...
Speaker:
How did she react to that, and how did you react?
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, the same way. We knew it was going to happen. She hoped she had made
her case. In fact, enough to stand on its own, which as it had turned out, she had,
so...
Speaker:
It got very personal though. Did that bother you or bother her?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that!s the way those idiots always behaved. That!s what you expect from
nerds like that, you know.
Speaker:
Shirley, this is really helpful. We really appreciate it. It!s good to hear your own
words. Even though some of this stuff is written down, as you noted it, it!s good to
hear you saying it. It moves people.
Shirley Briggs:
You know, Linda did a marvelous job by that biography. She worked on it for about
ten years and kept calling me up, you know, who was at this occasion, what was, and
so I just refer everybody to that book. She quizzed me very thoroughly.
Speaker:
Let!s go back to the debate on Silent Spring after it came out in "62. Did you feel
that the government was supportive of Carson, the Department of Interior?
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah. It was Udall then, and he was a valiant supporter, but I!m not so sure about
the Department of Agriculture always, but Udall was splendid all along of that.
Speaker:
He was a good Secretary. We!re hoping to get him to participate in this Carson
conference we!re doing next year.
Shirley Briggs:
Where is now, clear out southwest somewhere?
Speaker:
Southwest, yes. He just published a new article in American, I think it was American
Heritage, American Heritage.
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, I haven!t seen that.
Speaker:
We!ll send you a copy through Linda.
Shirley Briggs:
Thank you, I appreciate it, yes, very much.
Speaker:
Do you think overall we made progress since Carson as regard to contaminants and
pesticides and so on?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yes, I think we have. I got out a book on it, big book. It!s a few years back,
though, A Basic Guide to Pesticides, which was the attempt to follow up, in a way, to
Silent Spring. I!d hear all the dull detailed cases, one, two, and three, all this stuff. I
hope it!s still available. Quite the fool, I gave the copyright to Rachel Carson
Council, I think, not knowing that any nitwit like this guy on the post was going to
show up and take that over. He owned the copyrights as long as you!re alive. I
thought, well, I!m getting kind of old, you know. Don!t ever do that. You may wish to
hang on.
Speaker:
You wrote your book a couple of decades after Carson!s book.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:
Were there things that Carson had missed that you noted, obviously?
Shirley Briggs:
No, what had gone on since, but it was just alphabetically. Here are all the chief
chemicals and what we know about them. It!s not anything you!d sit down and read
for fun. It wasn!t anything you wrote for fun either.
Speaker:
Now, you taught for awhile with, was it the USDA on conservation philosophies?
Was that...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, there is the graduate school of the USDA, which is not that dealing
with what they!re doing, and under that, we have this series of courses, and that!s,
they take care of the keeping the books, and you would get paid a little for teaching it
. They didn!t put any cap on that this last time, and I teach it at home, and I
ran out of chairs, but that is an entirely separate institution from the Department and its
daily workings.
Speaker:
What do you try and teach the students?
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
What do you teach the students?
Shirley Briggs:
Environmental philosophy.
Speaker:
What do you try and get across to them when they leave your course?
Shirley Briggs:
The sort of things we!re talking about, I guess. How has environmental
consciousness evolved, what!s the background of it in this country or wherever, what
issues have come up and been important and so on.
Speaker:
Where do you start? Do you start with John Murre or or Rachel Carson?
Where do you begin your history?
Shirley Briggs:
Early 19th Century or before. I mean, what were the concepts way back when.
What have we built on and come to understand the environment better and all that.
Speaker:
Do you think there was a change in environmental philosophy in the 1960's with
Carson, your work, other folks in that period?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yeah, it!s evolved. Aldo Leopold and show what their concepts were, and
we!re up to that now. We hope we!re there and looking forward for sure.
Speaker:
Do you see Leopold and Carson as being similar in some ways in their
philosophies?
Shirley Briggs:
In every way, I would say, that they are the ones who expressed that, yes, I guess,
yeah. They were the Bibles, I thought that we have.
Speaker:
Let me ask you, Shirley, we!re talking about icons of the environmental movement
and the conservation movement. Did you have any inkling at the time you were
working with Rachel Carson and then up until Silent Spring that she is going to be
considered a patron saint in conservation, that my personal friend here is really not
only going to leave a legacy but is going to be regarded someday as a patron
saint? I mean, how did fame, and she was getting a lot of fame in the time you knew
her, a lot more since, but do you have any thoughts on the fame that surrounds
Rachel Carson, and did you expect to...
Shirley Briggs:
Well so she is who we refer to now, Leopold, Carson, a few others that
kept up with the ideas and said them well, and this is how it evolved.
Speaker:
Did she or did you anticipate it, though?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she had written Silent Spring, and after that, she obviously had said it for all of
us.
Speaker:
It!s an interesting point though. We remember Leopold and Carson because, in
part, they were such good writers. You can reread their books again and again and...
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, you mean someone who not only knows it but can say it...
Speaker:
Yeah.
Shirley Briggs:
...from a persuasive way.
Speaker:
Can write it well. Do you think Carson learned any of that writing for the public while
she worked with Fish and Wildlife, while you guys worked together? Did she get
practice...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that!s where she was working, at Wildlife. How do you design and write these
standard government publications so that they will be believed by the public. She
learned a lot of that by editing all the reports in the Fish and Wildlife Service. She
was editor in chief, and my job was when she came upon a particularly ridiculous
sentence, she!d draw a picture of it, cartoons. I should have brought along a little
book I have, the cartoons I drew of Rachel and me through some of this. I drew it
just to let my mother know what was going on, but I do have these, we would go out
in the fields somewhere, and doggone it, by the time we got back, Rachel was still
neat as a pin, and I looked like the dickens. This was typical, and going out doing the
job and so on. I keep thinking maybe I ought to do something with them.
A little descriptive writing of what it looked like, and there we are coming back from
something.
Speaker:
I!ve seen a few of the cartoons in Linda!s book.
Shirley Briggs:
I guess she did pick up a couple.
Speaker:
Yeah, they!re beautiful. I mean, you know, it!d be wonderful if you published just a
tiny thing of those cartoons.
Shirley Briggs:
How would I do that? Who would want to publish it?
Speaker:
Fish and Wildlife. Luckily, we have our editor from the publishing...
Shirley Briggs:
He should have wore a sticker.
Speaker:
David Klinger.
Speaker:
Yeah, maybe I could do it for you.
Speaker:
Do you want to collaborate on something?
Shirley Briggs:
Why not? I don!t seem to be getting it done myself.
Speaker:
But I really think you are on this, writing well preserves you in people!s memory and
it has a big effect.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
It goes in with you saying she synthesized the science and saw the whole picture.
Shirley Briggs:
Which ones did Linda pick up? I!ve forgotten.
Speaker:
I think one was from Chincoteague, actually.
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
There was a cartoon of going through a dumpster or a trash can. What was that?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, when Rachel was down at Myrtle Beach or somewhere, she would collect
stuff and then she would try to, if it was still alive, put it back, or if not, sneak out to the
municipal garbage can late at night and hide the smelly remains.
Speaker:
Here!s the two pictures that were in the, the two cartoons.
Shirley Briggs:
No, Rachel!s sunburned terribly, that!s what this one is, and there we are coming
back wherever we were staying at Chincoteague, and Rachel!s neat as a pin, and I
look pretty soggy.
Speaker:
How did she stay so neat while you got soggy?
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
Did she have a trick for staying so neat?
Shirley Briggs:
She just was neat. I don!t know how she did it. I used to watch her and, yeah, those
are the only cartoons that they, Linda did a remarkable job on that book, I must say.
Speaker:
Do you think she really caught the essence?
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
Did she leave anything out about Rachel that you would like to add?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t think so. Not that I could tell her. She was quizzing me all the time for several
years but...
Speaker:
We!ve talked about Leopold. We!ve talked about Carson!s philosophy. How
would you summarize your own environmental philosophy?
Shirley Briggs:
I believe what they did. I mean, they said it better, I suppose.
Speaker:
But what do you...
Shirley Briggs:
I like to think I!m in there camp, definitely.
Speaker:
Do you think people are coming around to their philosophy more now than in the
past?
Shirley Briggs:
Some people. Yeah, I think they!ve had quite an effect over the years. Not as
much as we would hope, but we still have the people like the Chemical
Company and so on trying to put their case.
Speaker:
It was one of the biggest critics of Carson, was. They sent out that
traveling show with Dr., what was it, White Stevens, would go out...
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, that awful man, but he was so awful that we rejoiced, because he was so much
the of the industry that we hoped people would recognize. He was
terrible. Frank Edgar kept trying on the other side. Is he still around? I!m trying to
think of people I can refer you to. They!re dead.
Speaker:
Was it discouraging having to deal with people like that on the other side? I mean
did it get...
Shirley Briggs:
Some of them were so bad that we rejoiced that they were clearly seen as the other
side, yeah.
Speaker:
You were with Fish and Wildlife for what, about three years, but yet you!ve stayed
kind of in touch with the Agency.
Shirley Briggs:
With the Interior Department. This guy showed up and taken over my job at the
end of the war, but I was still in the Department, and I was still working for various
agencies if they had a project.
Speaker:
Through your life, you!ve kind of stayed in touch with your Fish and Wildlife
colleagues and friends.
Shirley Briggs:
You know, until this year, we had a Fish and Wildlife retirees group that met for lunch
once a month, but I haven!t heard from them this year.
Speaker:
Was that the group Jo Quinter....
Shirley Briggs:
Who?
Speaker:
Jo Quinter, was she in that group?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t remember that name.
Speaker:
She had told me about a group that used to meet for lunch.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
And it just fell apart. We!re setting that back up again.
Shirley Briggs:
Oh good, that was always fun.
Speaker:
Jo is spearheading it. She lives in McLean, Virginia, and we!re sending the retirees
Fish and Wildlife News again, and we actually have a retiree reunion once a year
now out at NCTC. So we!re trying to maintain these connections.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, there was still quite a few people in that group that went way back, and I was
trying to find out what had happened to it.
Speaker:
So you!ve kept up with a number of those people through the years, Fish and
Wildlife people.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, and that group especially, of course. They tended to go back to my time.
Speaker:
What made Fish and Wildlife people special? I mean, it!s...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, you know, are there other agencies that or not? I don!t know
anything about any others, but we were a group of people who shared concern and
interest in conservation, environment, and what Interior is up to now, and all that sort
of thing. I don!t know how to compare them with anyone else. But if you!re in touch
with some revival there....
Speaker:
I will have them contact you.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Because I know exactly the group you!re talking about. Do you think we!ve done a
good job, Fish and Wildlife, of carrying out Rachel!s legacy?
Shirley Briggs:
Best they could. They have the same problems she had, I guess, of the, reaching
the public.
Speaker:
What do you feel most proud of in the career that you had and the work that you!ve
done? What would you consider your greatest contribution?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m not sure I had one. I just kept pegging away at this sort of thing as occasion
permitted. That Basic Guide to Pesticide was the thing I worked on most recently,
and I have kept up with that toxicology through the years. That!s been the main
thing I guess.
Speaker:
Was that subject difficult for you, because you were trained in art, right? You
weren!t...
Shirley Briggs:
You seem to think people just do one thing, hogwash. I was brought up for a broad
based education. I grew up in a University. I recommend this. Whatever a kid is
interested in, there!s some expert on the fact that will take him out and show him the
mother flies or whatever. My father was a professor of political science, in which I
have a great interest, too. If you can do some drawing on the side, that doesn!t
mean that!s all you!re interested in. You have to have a focus and a subject.
Speaker:
That!s an interesting point. Do you think having an interest in art, though, also caused
you to see things in a different way, to see nature differently, to see science
differently?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I suppose you do. That gives you an angle, but how different, I don!t know.
Speaker:
Your expertise, though, in chemistry and toxicology and contaminants, did that
develop...
Shirley Briggs:
I should have taken more chemistry, looking back. I also should have learned
Japanese but I...
Speaker:
Did you draw on that, though? From your relationship with Rachel Carson, do you
think your knowledge in that area was increased, or did you just...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think so. She was, of course had edited all the original research on that and
was very concerned about it, yeah.
Speaker:
In one way you followed Carson, though. I mean, because her expertise was
marine biology, and then she made herself expert on toxicology, and it was the
same with you. I mean you...
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, I didn!t study it in college, but it was something that mainly effected the things I
was working on. I could have brought along a copy of Basic Guide to Pesticides
and showed you but I...
Speaker:
Next time we!ll bring along a copy and have you sign it.
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
Next time we!ll bring along a copy of the book and ask you to sign it, and then we!ll
put it back in our library.
Shirley Briggs:
Fine, you have it.
...things lately. I was reading some of her Emily Dickinson connections.
Speaker:
This is the woman who was Emily Dickinson!s editor first? What was she, was she
the first editor of the Dickinson papers?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, her mother was the first one to get any of the poems published, and she knew
all about this.
Speaker:
She had a huge house and refuge on some island in the...
Speaker:
Oh, this is Millicent Todd Bingham.
Speaker:
Yeah, right.
Speaker:
Yeah, the Audubon camp at which I worked at in Maine on Hog Island.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Where did you and Rachel go to see here? It wasn!t at Hog Island, it was down...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, she lived here.
Speaker:
Yeah, okay. So that!s what we want to talk about. But you went to some place on
the eastern shore.
Shirley Briggs:
Did she?
Speaker:
Well, I have pictures, and it wasn!t...
Shirley Briggs:
Not on the eastern shore.
Speaker:
Okay, well then...
Shirley Briggs:
Maine.
Speaker:
Was it Hog Island then?
Shirley Briggs:
It was Boothbay.
Speaker:
Was she on the board of the Audubon ever?
Shirley Briggs:
Always, she went way back. I picked up recently a couple of her books based on
the Dickinson business, Emily Dickinson!s home and the other one. So I!m much
reminded of Mrs. Bingham. She was, and her husband, too, was extremely nice,
scientist and amazingly.
Speaker:
Yeah, I!ve read a little biography of her, and she was a fascinating person and all the
work they did in Maine and how that camp was established.
Shirley Briggs:
What biography?
Speaker:
Well, it was a little, actually a little write up of how her property there in Maine, the
Hog Island property got deeded over to the camp and got established in the
1930's.
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, she kept trying to find someone that would do that sort of thing with it.
Speaker:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I was just up there a couple, a year or two ago. It!s still going
strong. It!s a wonderful place.
Shirley, could you tell us a little bit about doing some of the birding with Rachel and
Christmas counts?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, we were out on our own some, but we with the local groups who did
this systematically, and the important thing in this is to keep the records year after
year after year in a consistent way. So we got involved with the Audubon Naturalist
Society principally, and until I got so I couldn!t hear the higher notes, I used to keep
up with that. I!m not so good at it anymore, either on the higher notes of the birds or
the steeper slopes of the park, but I did it for a long time, and people are going on
with it, of course.
Speaker:
People said you were a very good birder. Did that effect how you observed natural
at all, your birding?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m not that bad as a botanist either, I like to think. That I had studied in college to
some extent. I just knew people when I looked for birds, and my, both my parents
had had a course in ornithology in college, for heaven!s sake, so this wasn!t anything I
picked up. That!s what you did.
Speaker:
You said you drifted into the National Audubon Society, you worked with them. Do
you have any remembrances of Howard Zahnizer?
Shirley Briggs:
Oh, Zahnie. There was a splendid person. Yeah, I met one of the best people in
that group. He was just a splendid person and was, of course, working on the sort of
things we all thought were important.
Speaker:
What were some of these things that Zahnie was working on?
Shirley Briggs:
Preserving the records of the, and noticing what was happening in the wilderness
areas and so on. What do you know about Zahnie?
Speaker:
Well, he worked for Fish and Wildlife, so he was a...
Shirley Briggs:
That!s right.
Speaker:
Did you actions with him? Was he still in the Agency when you worked for
us?
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
was Zahnie still in Fish and Wildlife when you were working for us?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t remember. I knew him, whether from the office or some of these other outfits.
Speaker:
Roger Torrey Peterson was also active in the National Audubon Society.
Shirley Briggs:
Old , yes. I miss him. I used to be able to write and ask him questions
down there. Who was it, I was reading something that somebody had, a cat or
something named, that they named Rajah Torrey Peterson in honor of Roger. But
yeah, he was very active in all of this.
Speaker:
Any other folks from the National Audubon Society you remember as friends?
Shirley Briggs:
Now there are different things here. National Audubon is a crew up in New York
City. It is not the Audubon Naturalist Society. They!re not connected or were ever.
Speaker:
What about the Audubon Naturalist Society?
Shirley Briggs:
That is in this region, yeah, and it goes back to 1895, which predates the crew up in
New York, so we were proud of that. It was just a good, effective regional group
that everybody belonged to and worked with.
Speaker:
Do you remember some of the fights you had in that group, what you fought for in
the environment?
Shirley Briggs:
There you go, it!s always a fight or a struggle. Some things just evolve, you know. I
don!t remember any particular fight. Did something come to mind?
Speaker:
Fighting for habitat or against roads or anything that...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that road down we all rose up about, but I don!t know that we were
so much into lobbying and worrying about legislation, but if there was...
Speaker:
Island Beach, Shirley, tell them about Island Beach. This fits right in. Do you
remember when you and Rachel went down to Island Beach off the coast off...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, that!s the Barrier Island.
Speaker:
Barrier Island, and you were both interested in trying to, Rachel got interested in
trying to save it. It was in private hands.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
This was the time when they were going to ruin, take over those islands, and Rachel
wrote a piece about it.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, well we went over there and explored it.
Speaker:
Yeah, but remember there was a hurricane that came and you had to get out of there
real fast.
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, Rachel kind of regretted that. She!d always wanted to be in a hurricane and
see what it was like, but we didn!t want . Later sometime, a hurricane came
through Boothbay Harbor somewhere, and she decided she had had more than
enough of that, but this illustrates her curiosity and interest in natural phenomenon, I
guess.
Speaker:
Did you travel with Rachel in Maine at like Boothbay Harbor and so on?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, yeah, I used to like to get up there whenever I could. This was one of my
favorite places, too.
Speaker:
Why did you and Rachel love Maine so much? What was special about Maine,
because she obviously cared about it?
Shirley Briggs:
Ever been there?
Speaker:
Oh, yeah.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, then how do you think it!s special?
Speaker:
Well you know, I love Acadia National Park and the seashore and so on, but I!m
curious about what attracted...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, it was a fascinating part of the shore. Rachel wrote a whole book on the
seashore, one of her best, and it was. We just both liked it there. You can!t go into
all the reasons why you like a place just off hand usually.
Speaker:
What did you used to do with her? What were your common activities when you
were on the road with her, say, in Maine?
Shirley Briggs:
She kept trying to teach me how to play...
Speaker:
Pinochle.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah, and she never managed very well. I never got any good at pinochle.
Speaker:
So if you didn!t play pinochle, what did you do in the evenings? Did you talk, have
tea, star watch? What were some of the, did you spend a lot of time actually doing
natural history type things?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I suppose so. It!s a very interesting place, you go out and notice.
Speaker:
Now, were you gathering material for your art when you went on these field trips?
Did you sketch?
Shirley Briggs:
No.
Speaker:
You didn!t sketch?
Shirley Briggs:
You!ve got a phobia about this art thing. That!s a side issue. It!s something you do
if you!re doing illustrations or something. It!s not that you go out looking for
something to draw especially, unless you have a purpose.
Speaker:
Tell me about your diaries that you!ve kept.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I just have kept one. It!s not one of these where you philosophize. I just
found it useful in having a poor memory, to jot down when things happened, and
that!s what Linda kept pestering about all the time she was writing the book.
Sometimes I just noted this happened, these people were there or something.
Speaker:
When Carson passed on, did you look back in your diary just out of curiosity just to
see...
Shirley Briggs:
to do that.
Speaker:
Tell me about your interest in photography.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I just always did it. My father always did it. We had a darkroom in the
basement. Started out with a brownie and worked up. I now have some rather
fancy equipment, but I haven!t been using it much lately. This is just something that
was done. Most of these things just was a family interest or whatever.
Speaker:
Did you take a lot of pictures of Rachel Carson?
Shirley Briggs:
I seem to have the only collection of them. That!s what I do nowadays, I answer
requests. What do I have of Rachel Carson? I!ve got a little catalog of photocopies
that are not terribly good photographic quality, but you can tell whether she!s
outdoors or in or something. I guess that!s my main contribution to the cause is the
I have of the pictures, largely because I had taken quite a few of them, and
some people have given me them, and I have got copy negatives of all of them so
I can get prints made. I have given up keeping my darkroom in the basement all
fired up. That!s too much bother. I just take them down the street to somewhere
and they can print, but I can do all the darkroom stuff if I got that ambitious, I guess.
Speaker:
Do you have a favorite picture of Rachel?
Shirley Briggs:
What?
Speaker:
Do you have a favorite picture of Rachel out of your whole collection, one you think is
particularly nice?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, it depends on whether you want it indoors or out, old or young. I!ve got an
awfully nice one of her about five years old. It was one of the family negatives that I
guess her brother or somebody came up with. Her brother!s a character. I guess
he!s gone now, too. I forget, I!ve lost it.
Speaker:
What about any shots on trips you and Rachel took together? Do you have any
pictures you really liked from those times?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t remember. Some, I guess. I!ve got...
...Rachel and Buckle who was the refuge manager down at Chincoteague. Now
she!s certainly long gone.
Speaker:
Kay Howell.
Shirley Briggs:
She!s still there out in Salt Lake City, the last I called.
Speaker:
Do you think she!d be a good person for us to interview?
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Why?
Shirley Briggs:
She was involved with all of this. She!s good looking or always was. She!d come
out well. She!s positive.
Speaker:
What are your memories of the three of you working together? Were you kind of a
tight knit bunch?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, we were in adjoining offices and Burt Walford and so on. We would, I think this
business we did in the closet heating water for afternoon tea was illegal, actually, but
we did it. We just, twice a day or so, we would get together and compare notes.
Speaker:
What would you talk about over your tea?
Shirley Briggs:
Everything, what was going on in the office or outside. I told you there were more
parties going on, which Kay was always kind of involved. At least the last time I tried
to call her, there was still Mary Francis Howell, who I think shared an apartment with
Kay or something. She might remember some of this, I don!t know. She was still
around, at least.
Speaker:
You!ve had a really diverse career, you!ve done a lot of things, you!ve got a lot of...
Shirley Briggs:
Scatter brained.
Speaker:
Well, that would be one way of characterizing it, but I look at you and I say, there!s a
real renaissance woman who!s done a lot of things and a lot of interests. What kept
you going through the years? Tell me a little bit more about how these diverse
interests, how you!ve made...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, life is more interesting if you!re involved in more things. Haven!t you found that
to be true?
Speaker:
Absolutely, but I!m overwhelmed by the things, the interests that you have and the
things that you!ve developed on your own.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I think I was brought up, I say, if you grow up in the University, you!re aware of
a range of stuff.
Speaker:
So you really do credit your family and your early years with sparking all these
different interests?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, I suppose. Isn!t that true of anybody often?
Speaker:
Is there one thing you always had a strong passion for throughout your life?
Shirley Briggs:
I!m a little leery of that word passion. I think we!ve touched on most everything.
Speaker:
Sounds like a good place to end, and let us thank you very much, Shirley, for
agreeing to talk to us, and we really appreciate your insights.
Shirley Briggs:
Do look up those retirees for heaven!s sake.
Speaker:
I will get that information.
Shirley Briggs:
There was so, I don!t know who was still around. Bob Hines used to come. He was
one you should have talked to.
Speaker:
Tell us about Bob.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, he materialized from, they found him out in Ohio or something. I!m going to
sneeze.
Speaker:
Bless you.
Shirley Briggs:
I guess that will do something to the soundtrack. Anyway, he showed up and
proved to be thoroughly compatible. He was under Rachel for as long as they both
were there, I guess. I miss Bob. He was fun, but he could have told you quite a bit
about Rachel, no doubt, but he!s gone, too.
Speaker:
You and Bob shared a passion for or a liking for photography, right? He took lots of
pictures, my understanding is when he was in the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Shirley Briggs:
Well, maybe some, yeah, and he, of course, maintained a marvelous file of
drawings in everything. If you needed this duck or that moose or something.
Speaker:
What did you think of his art and did you...
Shirley Briggs:
Hmm?
Speaker:
What did you think of his artwork, and did you all collaborate on things or has one...
Shirley Briggs:
No, I wasn!t in .
Speaker:
But as one artist to another, did you all ever talk shop?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, he, I would say the work he did, not an inspired visionary artist, just a good
everyday, get the stuff out that somebody wants.
Speaker:
I always ask this question in every interview I do with former Fish and Wildlife
employees like yourself. What advise would you give to people entering Fish and
Wildlife Service, new employees who are just starting their careers? You!ve had a
long and varied career. Do you have any advise for people who are getting
started?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, they will all have listened to this excellent tape they!ve got now.
Speaker:
I didn!t prompt, I didn!t pay you for that endorsement. I!ll let the record...
Shirley Briggs:
Well, very sensible, if they focused on it, this is what new people need to know, and
they did a good job.
Speaker:
Do you have any personal advise you!d give from your experience in government
and in other jobs that you!ve had? What do you say to somebody like your
students in your conservation classes who were kind of getting into this business?
Shirley Briggs:
Well they may already be in, they come from various agencies and interests.
Speaker:
Any advise?
Shirley Briggs:
Just find out what!s going on and really see how their ideas jive, I guess. Every now
and then I get someone who!s work leads them into this or who ought to find a job
that would be into it, and I, of course, don!t know what all the jobs are anymore.
Speaker:
What!s the best advise you ever got in your career?
Shirley Briggs:
That is one of these utterly impossible questions to ask.
Speaker:
Nothing!s...
Shirley Briggs:
It!s too vague and general.
Speaker:
Well, did you have a role model in your career in the government or in your career in
art? Did you pattern yourself after anyone or look up to anyone?
Shirley Briggs:
Not anyone, no. I don!t think people do that, do you?
Speaker:
Well, I think everyone!s different.
Shirley Briggs:
Yeah.
Speaker:
Was there anyone in particular you looked up to for guidance as a young
employee?
Shirley Briggs:
Well, Clarence Cottom was around, Rachel was around. I don!t know, depending
on what came up.
Speaker:
Did you have a job that was your favorite?
Shirley Briggs:
I don!t know, and then there was, I forget names now. Who was head of Fish and
Wildlife in those days?
Speaker:
Was it Day?
Shirley Briggs:
Looked like a grizzly bear.
Speaker:
Albert Day?
Shirley Briggs:
He didn!t look like a grizzly bear.
Speaker:
No, Al Day didn!t.
Speaker:
Prior to Al Day, in the late "40's, it wasn!t Gabrielson?
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, Gabe.
Speaker:
Tell us about Isaac Gabrielson.
Shirley Briggs:
Both my folks had been in college with him. We figured hew as probably, of all the
graduates at Morningside College, he was the most, what!s the word I!m, he!s more
dirty language. The rest of them were quite proper. No, he was a marvelous
character. I enjoyed knowing him.
Speaker:
What did you like especially about him?
Shirley Briggs:
I think more than anyone else, he looked like a grizzly bear. But no, he knew the
field, and he was very articulate and active, vivid in his commentary.
Speaker:
He took an interest in what you folks were doing with publications and so on?
Shirley Briggs:
Yes, but we took an interest in what he was doing with the whole outfit. That!s the
main way it went.
Speaker:
Thank you so much, Shirley. We really appreciate this.
Shirley Briggs:
I hope I haven!t led you astray.
Speaker:
You have not, clarified very much of our history, and we just appreciate your time,
and we thank you so much for this.
Shirley Briggs:
I!ve got a lot of time.
Speaker:
I!m glad you loaned us a little of it.